Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesU.S. Air Force Colonel Robert Edmondson, U.S. Army Sgt. Maj. Dailey, Maj. Gen. David Perkins and Lt. Gen. David Huntoon salute as soldiers carry the flag-draped transfer case containing the remains of U.S. Army Specialist Michael Scusa out of a C-17 during a dignified transfer on the tarmac at Dover Air Force Base October 6, 2009 in Dover, Delaware. A member of the 4th Brigade Combat Team stationed at Fort Carson, Col.CAPE MAY CITY -- Instead of the mundane announcements normally read over the intercom at Lower Cape May Regional High School, there was moment of silence today for a 2005 graduate -- a kid remembered for his quiet respect and "yes ma’am’ and ‘no ma’am’ way of addressing teachers.

Seven former students, all members of the New Jersey National Guard, had safely returned from their recent deployment to Iraq. Another former student returned missing a limb. But this was the first military death of an alumnus.

Scusa, who would have turned 23 on Monday, was killed along with seven other U.S. soldiers on Saturday during a fierce day-long attack by as many as 200 insurgents in a forward operating base deep in the mountains of Afghanistan, according to military officials speaking to The Gazette, of Colorado Springs, Colo.

He is the 109th service member with ties to New Jersey to have died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"We pay the price with our young men," said Bert Kern, the assistant principal at Lower Cape May Regional. "We all miss him."

Scusa was a nice kid who always wanted to go into the military, Kern said, adding "he basically stayed under the radar."

As a teenager, Scusa would load up a backpack with bricks and jog through his neighborhood, said David Shuhart, a family friend, to The Press of Atlantic City. He was impassioned about joining the Army.

"That is all he ever said he wanted to do," said Valerie Davis, his math teacher for the 11th and 12th grades.

A month after graduating from high school, he was in basic training.

After his first tour of duty, he returned to Davis’ class, in uniform, to talk to her students about what his life was like. Scusa entertained questions about the social life and the heat, but also the serious ones about the danger.

"He made it seem that it wasn’t as bad as it was on TV," Davis said.

Still, he told his teacher, he would wait until after the holiday’s to tell his mother he had re-enlisted.

Stationed in Fort Carson, Colo., he married his wife, Alyssa, there about 18 months ago, Shuhart said. They had a son, Connor.

Scusa, who was attached to the 4th Brigade Combat Team, died in a firefight that marked the greatest loss of life for the Army Brigade in a single battle in Iraq or Afghanistan. The mountainous outpost was in the final stages of withdrawing from the position, according to the military officials who spoke to The Gazette from Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

Scusa’s death came days from the eighth anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan by the United States and amid high-level deliberations about military strategy in the region.

His body returned to the Dover Air Force Base early this morning in a solemn procession with the bodies of six other soldiers and 50 relatives, according to the Associated Press. A single child wailed in the crisp, sunny day.

Near Fort Carson, on the door of the home where he lived, a wreath and a yellow ribbon hung with his name.